E-Learning for Sustainable Development (SuDe)

1. Introduction: ICT for SuDe The growing poverty that devastates Africa today is likely to be compounded and accelerated in the future, driven by diminishing ecological resources and the emerging socio-cultural and economical conflicts. These and the potential threats of the conflicts currently brooding in the developing world necessitate an immediate change in our relationships, response and approach to the root causes that underlie them. Such a response requires that people and institutions develop the will to work together, sharing their knowledge, ideas and resources in collaborative relationships to eliminate this root causes and to create new perspectives for a sustainable development in their environment ( Bernard 2000, Hopkins / McKeown 2002 ). Sustainable Development for low income and least developed countries will only be achieved through a quantum leap in building and widening access to education. This is required for developing countries to achieve the „Millennium Development Goals – MDGs“. ICT, access and use of it, play a long underestimated role in achieving this goals. ICT can play a major role for sustainable development if it opens the doors for education and access to information. It is widely accepted today that a decisive accelerator for capacity building in education and knowledge transfer processes are information and communication technologies – ICTs. In order to achieve, for example, the educational MDG - universal primary education by